The Wanderer
by effie-perine
Summary: When entering the Academy you must first look into the Time Vortex. Not everyone stays whole. Not all Time Lords are content to be still. A story of a life half lived, just another victim of the War. OC, only passing mention of Canon characters.


TITLE: The Wanderer

AUTHOR: Effie Perine

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. I don't own the BBC. I'm not making money off this. I haven't even paid off the second series set of Doctor Who dvds.

A/N: I just sat down and this came out. It hasn't been beta'd or ever read yet. I'm putting it up on a whim, so if this disappears, that's why. Not every Time Lord could have been satisfied with their lives, and not all would have had the courage to go rogue like the Doctor. I was wondering about the conflict in Time Lord morality and this appeared. Fully formed. Three hours of typing. I cant feel my feet.

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When entering the Academy you must first look into the Time Vortex.

They call it a test, preparation, familiarising. What it really is, despite our advanced civilisation and all our manners, is a brutal rite of passage. When it comes down to it it's no different then the young children of other cultures being thrown into the winter wilderness to see if they survive. To see if they are worthy. Where other cultures have blood and flesh and status at stake, we put our souls.

They say it is to ensure our ability to cope with the awesome power of being a Time Lord and the responsibility that came with that power. Empty rhetoric. It is vicious and violent but it is also necessary. At that young age we haven't the mental barriers to protect ourselves, and by looking into the Vortex we become a part of it. Look into the abyss.

Some go mad. Some die.

Everyone sees something different. Countless tomes have been written about it, but when it comes down to the bare bones of the matter no one really knows why. It probably says more about the person looking then the Vortex itself. When our president the Lady Romana looked, reportedly, she saw the great ocean of time and all the life it contained and how the smallest pebble created ripples that destroyed lives. Though I didn't know it at the time, one had looked into the Vortex and saw only the darkness, the decay and destruction inherent in the universe and the power it held. He saw how that power could wrap around the minds of those around him and bend them to his will. He took the name 'The Master' and became a part of the darkness. The infamous Doctor, the renegade, never spoke of what he saw, but whatever it was sent him running clear across the fullness of time and space. He was the help in the most desperate hour and the oncoming storm. Though the laws condemned him we could not bring him to heel for it became clear with time that though a free agent he was not the greater evil, and sometimes even Time Lords need help.

When my brother looked into the Vortex he became burdened, but it was a burden he accepted most gladly. He relished the knowledge he could gain and the wisdom the elders could impart. One who knew not to interfere, one who knew the power he held and why he must not use it. He knew his role in Time Lord society and was put as an example to us all. A shadow we must always be in.

When my sister looked into the Vortex she lost her mind. All she could feel, all she knew was time. She could feel it pressing in at her sides and creeping down her throat. She could not move for it held her in its grip and she could not escape it. Though I suppose in the end she did.

Looking into the Vortex is never something you can fully describe. Language is inadequate and cannot contain all the dimensions of reality. Descriptors can brush the surface only. When I looked into the Vortex I saw both the great balance and the meaningless chaos. I saw how every moment was now and how now didn't exist. I saw how every event flowed into another as to become indistinguishable and how far apart every breath was.

I don't know who else has seen it this way but sometimes I suspect I did go mad like poor Amith. I certainly wasn't inspired. When the time came I didn't run away. When my time at the Academy had ended, when I could be admitted into Time Lord society as a full citizen it was ashes in my mouth. When my parents came to tell me how proud they were all I could do was turn away. When my brother told me of the promising career I could have, just like him, all I could think of was the universe and how little of it was in that room.

I didn't run. I acquired a TARDIS of sorts through mostly legal channels because I simply could not imagine life without one, and drifted into the tides of the continuum. I did not run because that implies a to or from, whereas I was simply being. Like any good Time Lord I merely observed at first. The great events, the moments in history marking a change of course. I watched the signing of the Shadow Proclamation with a Time Lord's pleasure knowing in a thousand lifetimes it would be observed by countless races and would save the lives of people who would have been crushed underfoot otherwise. I was solemn as I watched the Fall of the Gates knowing the millions that would die before another regime took over.

I began to walk. Watching was not enough; I walked the streets of the great cities where these things happened. My drifting took me to worlds so unlike my own and I had to go into them, to feel the ground and taste the air. I was startled the first time someone spoke to me, not a muttered apology as they brushed past or and insult as I crossed their path, but actually spoke to me. It was not profound, it was not even meaningful, it was a comment on something I was looking at and wasn't it amazing. I was so surprised I found myself pulled into a conversation, albeit somewhat one sided. I realised something and was deeply ashamed I had never thought on it before. These were people.

I had seen life and death and history, but until now it had never registered that these people were as involved with it as those who had come before. I had witnessed the founding of the city I stood in, and now some hundred years later I was talking to a person who was as connected to that moment as any who had stood there and made it happen. I had not realised how deeply ingrained certain ways of thinking had been in me. I had drifted through the universe as a watcher, like the universe was some pretty piece of art or a story for me to enjoy, secure in the knowledge I could come back and see it any time I wished.

It was never enough to simply walk now. I became involved. Not in the history or the society or anything of actual significance, but I tasted the food, interacted with people, obtained goods, even on occasion joined in with what was happening around me. I was drunk on the pleasures the universe had to offer. Without realising it I became more involved. I was on a small planet watching people dance under a double moon, I would not dance as I was still clinging to old dignities and besides had no idea how, when I became aware of where I was. This wasn't just a concert I had wandered into; this was the first Solsea Festival. The planet was a sprawling colony, mostly human, and a kind of bohemian outpost for numerous cultures. The festival was modelled on some historic event in human past, and I was here at the first. I had come here by accident without paying attention to details like location or time, and was part of a historic turning point for culture that would spread across three galaxies influencing everything it touched. The Solsea festival was the first time that so many cultures came together for a free sharing of music with no political agenda or treaty goal. It changed relations between species for generations.

I barely made it back to my TARDIS before I threw up.

From the earliest it is drummed into you. Do not participate, only observe. We do not interfere. What had I done?

I slowed down, I tried. I went back to drifting, watching. I ghosted through the verse unable to stay still and unable to make choices as to a destination. I could not consider returning to Gallifrey, I wasn't strong enough to survive there.

I was so used to interacting, it was harder then I thought to break the habit. I knew I could no longer be as I was when by accident or fate I landed on a planet during a small revolution. It barely covered one continent but I landed right in the middle. Just in time to find a female beating a small child for scrawling a rebel sign on the wall. The child couldn't have been old enough to know what it meant, and several others had already done the same it was probably just copying the sign, but the woman would not pity the child's cries. I broke her limb in two places.

I had not meant to, but in the child I saw Amith and I had reacted before thought. I was a failure as a Time Lord. I did not know how to feel when I found the child had grown to lead a larger rebellion, against a corrupt system it was true but it lead to a system so like the old. All I could feel was the futility.

How could my fellow Time Lords live with this? The knowledge of how everything tied together, how things became. Perhaps they had been wise to remain outside of it all, once you started you could not pull yourself out, it was like drowning. You wanted to act and you knew to stand back. Perhaps it was better to never want at all. To keep that distance and let it numb you to the people who were affected.

I lived in this half-half area for longer then I care to admit. Acting when I could do nothing but, then punishing myself by pulling back and staying away.

Then came the war. The Last Great Time War they called it when we were recalled to Gallifrey. Daleks had become the enemy we never knew to fear they could be.

I had so little time before I had to report, there was one thing I wanted to do. Like the renegades I had become somewhat fond of the humans. Such ability for destruction and such capability for nobility. The potential was alarming and amazing. What I wanted had roots far in the past, and they alone of species had brought it to an art.

It was primitive, I was almost positive it was forbidden. I wanted to wear my soul on my skin.

It was the early 21st century on earth, before technology had replaced the needle. A small establishment in the city of Sydney Australia, on a cool afternoon. I waited while the girl before me finished. She was with a friend who had finished already, and was alternately swearing and laughing, careful not to move too much. A small creature outlined on her hip, some kind of pet they had at this time. I wondered at the significance. I felt dull and grey next to their enjoyment. I wondered if I had ever lived like that. Maybe I could have. Too late now.

I gave the tattooist the picture I had drawn of what I wanted. He would have no idea of the meaning, but it wasn't necessary. All that mattered was he was good at his work and that he would do it all today. The chair I sat in was designed to support the body as I bared my back to him. Ironic that this was the most any had seen of my body, and it was a stranger on a strange planet preparing to scar me for all my lives.

The pain was there, but I didn't notice in any real way. Instead I went inside myself. Gallifrey. I may have left but it was my home. I may have hated the way my brother thought but I loved him and my parents. Amith had loved it even though in the end she had not survived it. Gallifrey could not fall. I tried to prepare for what would be asked of me. When the tattooist pulled away, with a comment about my tolerance levels I recognised was a joke, I went to the mirror to see.

Aligned along my spine starting at the nape of my neck, my Chapters symbol over the symbol for my family. Where I came from, the past behind me. Over my left heart what needed to be fought for and kept safe. Not Gallifrey but the Ouroboros, the passage of time. Over my right, something more personal, not a reminder but a memorial. The small insect native to Gallifrey, not unlike a small red butterfly, that Amith had loved and was tied to my memories of her life.

I returned to Gallifrey that night.

The Time War raged for so long. We adapted but so did the enemy. It turns out I was good at killing, it took a little while for Time Lords to adapt to this method of fighting but we all did sooner or later. Capture was a luxury we could not afford, and not even an option for us. To capture a Dalek meant the constant threat of an enemy behind the lines, and they did not understand the concept of prisoners when it came to Time Lords. I burned through three regenerations, but the tattoos remained on my flesh.

We knew the end was coming. Entrenched on a small planet less then a days travel form Gallifrey, the news came that the Daleks had broken through in some places. We had been there for several of the planets days, loosing numbers as we were forced to slowly retreat in the face of the waves and waves of Dalek troops. We were tired and dirty and more then one had been injured by shrapnel. The usual ranks had been lost, now we worked together, whoever had the best ideas were in charge. I was in a section of burnt out ship with four others, waiting for a Dalek patrol when we got the news. One, Traic, deserted upon hearing the news. He didn't make it more then 20 feet before being shot down by the Dalek patrol as they crested the hill. I don't know where he thought he was going.

The Daleks must have been coming across small pockets of fighters and individuals cut off from the others all night because they didn't mention searching the area. I didn't care, so long as they moved forward. I had learned to expect the savage joy that spiked between my hearts when I activated the field and blew them apart. This new form of trap wouldn't be effective much longer so we focused on getting a kill first time for as many as possible at a time so there was less chance of them adapting. However the shrapnel as they ripped open was just as deadly to us, and despite the cover I still managed to get a few shards of it buried in my shoulder. The smallest was less then an inch long, the largest as long as my palm and I had to pull them out myself so my natural healing could take over. No painkillers, they were reserved for medical personnel only for the serious cases. If you could take it without passing out you got nothing, half the time with supplies cut out, passing out was the only way of avoiding pain.

Gallifrey was breached.

Daleks could not be allowed access to the Time Vortex. Not only would life be wiped out, but the universe would be gutted by these creatures with no concept but exterminate. We all knew it; there would be a final defence. The last resort.

Fire arched across time and space around me and the world burnt. I think I screamed. I don't know.

The Last Great Time War. We all lost.


End file.
